Dominic Flandry, ein Fähnrich im Dienst der terranischen Flotte, wird zur Schlüsselfigur im Ringen der beiden kosmischen Großmächte Terra und Merseia.

Der junge Flandry erhält eine Information aus dem Geheimarchiv Merseias zugespielt. Er enträtselt die Botschaft und erfährt, daß ein Planet, auf dem zwei verschiedenartige Völker beheimatet sind, von der Vernichtung bedroht ist — und daß die terranische Flotte in eine Falle gelockt werden soll. Während Freund und Feind Flandry durch das All hetzen, handelt der Fähnrich auf eigene Faust, um das Unheil abzuwenden.

Poul Anderson hat bereits mehrere Flandry-Romane geschrieben — sie erschienen in TERRA oder in der Reihe der TERRA-Sonderbände — hier legt der bekannte SF-Autor aus den USA sein neuestes Werk vor, das den Beginn der Karriere des „Spions im All“ zum Inhalt hat.

Everyone wants to escape their boring, stagnant lives full of inertia and regret. But so few people actually have the bravery to run, run away from everything and selflessly seek out personal fulfillment on the other side of the world where they don't understand anything and won't be expected to. The world is full of cowards. Tim Anderson was pushing thirty and working a string of dead-end jobs when he made the spontaneous decision to pack his bags and move to Japan,?where my status as a U.S. passport holder and card-carrying?American English? speaker was an asset rather than a liability.? It was a gutsy move, especially for a tall, white, gay Southerner who didn?t speak a lick of Japanese. But his life desperately needed a shot of adrenaline, and what better way to get one than to leave behind everything he had ever known to move to?a tiny, overcrowded island heaving with clever, sensibly proportioned people that make him look fat In Tokyo, Tim became a?gaijin,? an outsider whose stumbling progression through Japanese culture is minutely chronicled in these sixteen howlingly funny stories. Yet despite the steep learning curve and the seemingly constant humiliation, the gaijin from North Carolina gradually begins to find his way. Whether playing drums on the fly in an otherwise all-Japanese noise band or attempting to keep his English classroom clean when it's invaded by an older female student with a dirty mind, Tim comes to realize that living a meaningful life is about expecting the unexpected?right when he least expects it.

A collection of three Flandry tales:

First published in 1965.

It is the largest oil spill in history: a supertanker crashes into the Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco Bay. Desperate to avert environmental damage (as well as the PR disaster), the multinational oil company releases an untested designer oil-eating microbe to break up the spill.

What the company didn’t realize is that their microbe propagates through the air… and it mutates to consume anything made of petrocarbons: oil, gasoline, synthetic fabrics, plastics of all kinds. And when every piece of plastic begins to dissolve, it’s too late….

In the 21st century, Planet Earth was in the grip of an orientalized, paternalistic World State that gave all—and took all. Only in the land that was once the United States were the principles of freedom paid so much as lip service, and even there liberty flickered toward extinction. In such a world as this the Jeffersonians were a band of hopeless visionaries, political cranks, a quixotic underground dreaming of the reinstitution of the American Constitution.

But then a star drive was developed and the Jeffersonians were sentenced to eternal exile. On a world twenty light years and a century from their homes they set out to create a society conceived in liberty and dedicated to the proposition that the individual is more important than the state. They are the New Americans. This is their story.

The benevolent, paternalistic World State regarded the freedom-minded Jeffersonians as a minor embarrassment whose violent elimination would cause more disruption than their demise would merit. So both sides were happy when the chance came for voluntary exile to a distant planet. But two hundred years later the less benevolent descendant of the World State that had let them go was to decide that the cosmos was not big enough to hold both it and a free people…

In the future, the dead walk the streets—Resurrection, Inc. found a profitable way to do it. A microprocessor brain, synthetic heart, artificial blood, and a fresh corpse can return as a Servant for anyone with the price. Trained to obey any command, Servants have no minds of their own, no memories of their past lives.

Supposedly.

Then came Danal. He was murdered, a sacrifice from the ever-growing cult of neo-Satanists who sought heaven in the depths of hell. But as a Servant, Danal began to remember. He learned who had killed him, who he was, and what Resurrection, Inc. had in mind for the human race.

Activist Elizabeth Devane wished for an end to nuclear weapons. Surely, she thought, if they'd known what they were unleashing, the scientists of the Manhattan Project would never have created such a terrible instrument of destruction. But during a protest action, the unthinkable happened: a flash of light, a silent confusion, and Elizabeth awakes to find herself alone in a desolate desert arroyo… and almost fifty years in the past.

June 1944. Los Alamos, New Mexico. While the Allies battle in the Pacific and begin the Normandy invasion in Europe, Nazi Germany deviates from the timeline Elizabeth knows and uses its newfound nuclear arsenal against America. Somehow, someway, Elizabeth has been given the chance to put the genie back in the bottle… yet could she—should she—attempt the greatest sabotage in history?

Inspired by the writings of Stefan Zweig, recreates a by-gone era through its arresting visuals and sparkling dialogue. The charm and vibrant colours of the film gradually darken with a sense of melancholy as the forces of history conspire against a vanishing world

The voices pierced Duncan’s own, and brought him jerkily about. Three! A yellow-bearded man in spike-topped helmet and chainmail; a short, leather-coated, fur-capped rider on a rearing pony; a tall, slender woman in knee-length white dress. And Duncan Reid.

The horseman got his mount under control. At once he snatched a double-curved bow that hung at his saddle, an arrow from the quiver beside, and had the weapon strung and armed. The blond man roared and lifted an ax. The woman drew a knife of reddish metal.

Reid struggled to wake from this nightmare....

Renowned child psychologist Caitlin O’Hara is a single mom trying to juggle her job, her son, and a lackluster dating life. Her world is suddenly upturned when Maanik, the daughter of India’s ambassador to the United Nations, starts speaking in tongues and having violent visions. Caitlin is sure that her fits have something to do with the recent assassination attempt on her father—a shooting that has escalated nuclear tensions between India and Pakistan to dangerous levels—but when teenagers around the world start having similar outbursts, Caitlin begins to think that there’s a more sinister force at work.

In Haiti, a student claws at her throat, drowning on dry land. In Iran, a boy suddenly and inexplicably sets himself on fire. Animals, too, are acting irrationally, from rats in New York City to birds in South America to ordinary house pets. With Asia on the cusp of nuclear war, Caitlin must race across the globe to uncover the mystical links among these seemingly unrelated incidents in order to save her patient—and perhaps the world.

The German concentration camps of World War II, the horrors of the Vietnam war, the prolific rape and brutality during the breakup of the former Yugoslavia and the Hutu massacres of Tutsis in Rwanda. All are abhorrent violations of the laws and customs of war. Yet some of the worst abuses of this century escape this classification, as they were not actually committed during times of armed conflict. Among these are Stalin’s policy of ethnic cleansing and his destruction of the kulaks, the terror of the Khmer Rouge, and Mao’s forced collectivizations.

This book records the worst abominations in history, whether or not classified as war crimes or just acts of pure evil.

A power struggle for time itself.

The corridors of time connect the ages to each other. Through them, one can travel backwards and forwards over the history of man. But rival factions have waged war for centuries.... Malcolm is an ordinary man of today, caught up in a time war beyond his comprehension....